Was Marvel Actually Right to Make Us Wait So Long for a Female Superhero?

Today, Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporterannounced that Marvel had zeroed in on three likely candidates to direct its upcoming, Brie Larson-led superhero movie Captain Marvel.Niki Caro, Lesli Linka Glatter, and Lorene Scafaria are reportedly still hanging in while other contenders, like The Babadook’s Jennifer Kent and Kung-Fu Panda 2’s Jennifer Yuh, are out. But though other trades are confirming this news, there’s a repeated caveat that goes along with it. As Justin Kroll of Varietysays, Kit’s list “looks legit but as he says and as I’ve tweeted in past, don’t expect decision anytime soon.” In other words, Marvel continues to proceed at a glacial pace with this property—and despite fan-based impatience for a female-led superhero film, this slow and steady approach may win the race.

Back in 2014, Marvel Cinematic Chief Kevin Feige frustrated some comic-book lovers when he tried to explain why, six years after Iron Man kickstarted the Avengers franchise, there were still no female-led comic book movies. “We find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most people have—which is a very, very good thing and we don’t take for granted, but is a challenging thing,” he said about the delay on a Captain Marvel or even Black Widow film. “You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that's because just the timing worked . . . Those are the kinds of chess matches we’re playing right now.” At the time, Angie Han of Slashfilm put together a damning list of similar comments from Feige that dated back to 2012. To some, it felt like Feige wasn’t making female representation in the world’s most popular franchise a priority.

But as frustrating as Feige’s 2014 comments may have been, it’s much easier now to admire the chess game Marvel has been playing. The company hasn’t had to deviate much from the ambitious slate it introduced just a few months after Feige’s comments. There’s been a release date shuffling here and there to accommodate buggy heroes like Ant-Man, the Wasp, and Spider-Man, but Marvel, generally, continues to project an air of calm, steady confidence.

Compare that to the other major studios trying to get comparably ambitious superhero franchises of the ground. After Marc Webb’s crack at the franchise spun out, Sony relinquished some control of Peter Parker back to Marvel. 20th Century Fox had a huge win with Deadpool, but an equally staggering loss with 2015’s Fantastic Four and only middling success with this year’s X-Men installment.

But Warner Bros., of course, provides the biggest cautionary tale of all. Its two big films of 2016, Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad, were reportedly rushed out in order to meet the ambitious, Marvel-esque scheduling slate the studio announced in 2014. In The Hollywood Reporter’s behind-the-scenes examination of the problems plaguing Suicide Squad, a source says director David Ayer “wrote the script in like, six weeks, and they just went.” There was no option to delay the film’s release, because “it’s not just that you’ve told the public the movie is coming, you’ve made huge deals around the world with huge branding partners, with merchandise partners. It’s a really big deal to move a tentpole date.”

Though they fared fine at the box office, those DC films were lambasted by critics, forcing the studio to soldier on in the shadow of a damaged brand. And if Marvel hadn’t already learned to take it slow and steady with directorial selection after losing first Patty Jenkins on Thor 2 and, more publicly, Edgar Wright on Ant-Man, then Warner can, again, serve as a reminder. Thor 2 and Ant-Man were, at least, lower-stakes projects. Warner Bros. lost director Michelle MacLaren from Wonder Woman and Seth Grahame-Smith from The Flash, two big movies the studio absolutely has to land in order to keep any momentum on The Justice League franchise. Hopes are high, yet easily shaken when it comes to Wonder Woman which is now in the hands of Patty Jenkins. But if that movie fails to land with audiences, Warner Bros. won’t get any extra credit for bringing fans a female-led superhero film first.

That brings us back to the wait-and-see attitude behind both Captain Marvel and Marvel’s first non-white superhero movie, Black Panther. The introduction of Chadwick Boseman’s Wakandan prince in Captain America: Civil War was a resounding hit and the subsequent news that Creed director Ryan Coogler has assembled an all-star cast including Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, and Danai Gurira proves that even though we had to wait too long for it, Marvel shows every sign of getting Black Panther right.

The same, hopefully, can be said for Captain Marvel. Snagging Oscar-winner Brie Larson for the lead is an incredible start, and won the studio the blessing of popular Captain Marvel comics author Kelly Sue DeConnick. Director Joss Whedon wanted to cast the part much earlier, in time to give Captain Marvel a cameo in Avengers: Age of Ultron but, again, Feige decided to take it slow. The fact that things are progressing somewhat more rapidly now after the 2015 departure of stuck-in-the-past C.E.O. Ike Perlmutter, may not be a coincidence.

And now the Captain Marvel directorial field has been narrowed to three fine choices. Niki Caro, like Coogler, has prestige cred thanks to 2002’s Whale Rider, and an established relationship with Disney thanks to McFarland, USA. Lesli Linka Glatter—like current Marvel favorites Joe and Anthony Russo—hails from the television world and has directed episodes of Homeland, Ray Donovan, The Newsroom, True Blood, Mad Men, ER, and The West Wing. Finally, Lorene Scafaria is a slightly more eccentric option in the vein of Marvel directors James Gunn or Scott Derrickson. Her quirky, off-beat films—Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and The Meddler—may make her the candidate that would gel best with star Brie Larson’s indie sensibilities.

The next step, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “will involve Marvel giving a treatment and documents to the directors in order to prepare a detailed presentation.” These women, like the other Marvel directors before them, will have to be able to blend their own artistic visions with the larger Marvel plan. (A task that, ultimately, proved untenable for the likes of Joss Whedon and Edgar Wright.)

Some film critics like to ding Marvel for that top-down approach to creativity, but it looks more favorable when compared to Warner Bros. and Fox monkeying with their director’s creative visions after-the-fact. Both the delays and strict power structure are all part of Marvel’s long-term plan for keeping the Avengers franchise humming along smoothly. And as their monstrously successful track record has proved, it may all be worth the wait.